Asia

Presidential Adviser on the Peace Process Teresita Quintos-Deles has cited the role of women in peace negotiations.

"More people understand now that we need women. Without women, violence would have become communal a long time ago," Deles said during a dialogue with delegates from various local and international non-government organizations held on Thursday at her office in suburban Pasig City.

Un Sokunthea became Cambodia's first female deputy police chief on Thursday.

The promotion ceremony was held at the Ministry of Interior chaired by Em Sam An, secretary of state of Ministry of Interior, said Keat Chantharith, spokesman of National Police Commissariat.

Just prior to her promotion, Major Gen. Un Sokunthea served as deputy director of central justice department of Interior Ministry.

A repressive and violent rule by the Taliban and Mujahideen that pushed the country backward by decades and treated women like a commodity is now giving way to some norms of decency under a democratic rule. Surprisingly, hundreds of women contested the 2010 elections to Afghan parliament and now, 69 of 249 MPs are women.

Women have gained a stronger role in the peace process with the help of advocacy groups, according to Presidential Adviser on the Peace Process Secretary Teresita Quintos-Deles.

When Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki introduced what he called a national partnership government two weeks ago, he included allies and adversaries, Arabs and Kurds, Shiite Muslims and Sunnis. One group, however, was woefully underrepresented.

A Northern Ireland politician is travelling to Iraq to pass on lessons learned in the peace process.

But Dawn Purvis said she also hopes to learn from the experience of the people of the war-torn country.

The independent MLA, former leader of the loyalist Progressive Unionist Party, said Northern Ireland still had a lot to learn on breaking down barriers in its own society.

Primarily, as a result of negligible conviction rate, the graph of crime against women in Kashmir has touched an all time high in last four years.

Data available with the Kashmir Times reveals the pathetic position of women victims who have faced the worst not only at the hands of the criminals but the administration as well.

Having suffered pain and injustice for decades, women of the northeastern region of the country are coming together to act as interlocutors between various groups and thus play a key role in the peace process, experts said at a conference here Wednesday.

Vietnam is evaluated as the best performer in Southeast Asia in terms of eradicating gender gap over the past 20 years, said Minister of Labour, Invalids and Social Affairs Nguyen Thi Kim Ngan.

On December 25, a female suicide bomber, not more than 18 years of age, blew herself up killing at least 47 people and injuring 105 others.

The target of what is believed to be the first suicide bombing by a woman in Pakistan was a United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) food distribution centre in Khar, a tribal region of Bajaur, near the Afghan border.